3D Printed Planter Tutorial

In celebration of spring, here is an easy 3D printed planter tutorial for Tinkercad! Tinkercad is a free 3D design website. It makes 3D design fun and easy. Once you’ve made your Tinkercad account and opened a new project page, follow along with these simple steps.

1. Click on the polygon from the basic shapes menu on the right side of the page. a polygon should appear on your build plate. You could also follow this tutorial with a cylinder or box.

2. Click on your polygon and increase the the amount of sides to 8 to create a octagon. Click and drag the white dot in the corner of the shape to increase the length and width of the Octagon. Use the white dot on top of the shape to increase the height. 

3. once you have sized your octagon to whatever size you want your planter to be (I made mine around 2 inches tall), duplicate the shape by using copy, paste (ctrl+c, ctrl=v). Turn your duplicated shape from a solid to a hole. When grouped, a hole will remove space from a shape.

4. Click on the Holey octagon and hold the shift key while clicking and dragging the white dot in the corner of shape toward its center. This will decrease the size of the octagon. Holding the shift key proportionately decreases every dimension, the height, width, and length. The difference between the size of the octagon and the hole will make up the thickness of the planter walls, so you only need to make the hole slightly smaller than the original. 

5. Use the align tool on the top right tool bar to center the hole to the middle of the octagon. Use ctrl+a to select both shapes then click align. A grid of black dots will appear. Click on the two center dots and the highest dot. This will align the hole for our planter. Don't forget, you can always use the back arrow in the top left tool bar to undo a step. 

6. Once the hole is aligned we can use the group tool to create space in our planter. Use ctrl+a to select both shapes, then use the group button on the top right tool bar. This should combine the 2 shapes so that we have an octagon with a large space in the middle. 

7. Finally lets add drainage holes to our planter. Select the cylinder hole from the basic shape menu, and use the small white dot on the side to decrease the size. I made mine .05 inch by .05 inch. copy and paste your tiny cylinders to create as many drain holes as you want. Click and drag them or use the arrow keys to arrange them at the bottom of your octagon. Use ctrl+A again to select the octagon and all the drain holes, then use the grouping tool to combine them. 

8. your finish product should look something like this: 

If you are ready to print your planter check out how on Frisco Library's 3D Printer page, opens a new window!